Prison officer faces jail for misleading NSW corruption watchdog over assault

A corrective services officer who misled the NSW corruption watchdog about the bashing of an inmate faces his own stint in custody after admitting he lied.

Brian McMurtrie gave evidence to the Independent Commission Against Corruption about an incident at Lithgow Correctional Centre in February 2014, when another prison officer, Terrence Walker, assaulted an inmate.

He was charged with misconduct and lying twice about his part in covering up the assault as part of a pattern ICAC described as pointing to systemic issues of corruption and misreporting.

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Three other officers - Simon Graf, Elliott Duncan and Stephen Taylor - were also found by ICAC to have participated in the cover-up.

Graf sat in the public gallery with his wife at Sydney's Downing Centre District Court on Thursday, when he was convicted but received no further penalty after pleading guilty to two counts of giving false or misleading evidence to ICAC.

But Judge Craig Everson said McMurtrie's offences required an appropriate sentence, which would be a form of imprisonment.

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The case required a penalty that showed the public "truth must be paramount" when giving evidence, he said.

Lying to a public inquiry such as from ICAC was a "matter that strikes squarely at the heart of our system of justice", Judge Everson added.

He said he was inclined to impose an intensive corrections order - or supervised conditional release in the community - but he would await further submissions.

A large crowd of serving corrective officers attended the court to support McMurtrie and Graf, and cheered loudly when the latter left the courtroom.

McMurtrie will be sentenced in March and remains on bail.